Orwell vs Kafka: The Man Who Disappeared

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Drama on 4: Orwell vs Kafka: The Man Who Disappeared: Episode 2

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Episode 2

BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, Orwell vs Kafka: The Man Who Disappeared, Episode 2

Kafka’s dark comedy about an innocent’s misadventures in early 20th-century America.

After a mysterious family scandal, young Karl Rossman is dispatched to America by his parents. Franz Kafka's dark comic fantasy about an innocent’s misadventures.

Franz Kafka’s dark comic fantasy about an innocent’s misadventures in early 20th century America.

Following a mysterious family scandal, the young immigrant Karl Rossman is expelled from his Bohemian home and dispatched to America by his parents. Adrift in this strange new world, Karl is soon swept up in an America that is by turns a land of endless promise and monstrous brutality.

When Karl first arrives in New York, his rich Uncle Jacob takes him under his wing and introduces him to big business and high society. But, for reasons not entirely clear to him, Karl falls foul of the social customs of his new home and is forced to seek his own fortune. On the road, he befriends fellow immigrants Delamarche and Robinson and together they head West in search of opportunuty. But it's not long before he becomes aware of their malign intentions and when they reach the colossal Hotel Occidental, Karl manages to find work as a lift boy and give his travelling companions the slip.

A new adaptation by Ed Harris.

Karl . . . . . Divian Ladwa
Narrator . . . . . Fenella Woolgar
Robinson . . . . . Ian Dunnett Jnr
Delamarche . . . . . Charlie Anson
Brundelda . . . . . Jasmine Hyde
Catling . . . . . Ewan Bailey
Giancomo . . . . . Anna Spearpoint
Head Cook . . . . . Jessica Turner

Production co-ordinator: Ben Hollands
Sound design: Peter Ringrose
Director: Sasha Yevtushenko

A BBC Studios Audio production

Ed Harris is an award-winning dramatist and comedy writer. He has had over 20 audio plays broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4, as well as three series of his popular wartime sitcom, Dot. His work has won numerous awards including two Writers’ Guild Awards, a BBC Audio Drama Award and a Sony Gold/Radio Academy Award. His stage plays include Strangers Like Me (National Theatre Connections), Mongrel Island (Soho Theatre), Never Ever After (shortlisted for the Meyer-Whitworth Award) and What The Thunder Said (Theatre Centre). He is a current Royal Literary Fellow at Brighton University and Writer-in-Residence for the Oxford Kafka 2024 programme at Oxford University.

Drama on 4: Orwell vs Kafka: The Man Who Disappeared

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Kafka's dark comedy about an innocent's misadventures in early 20th-century America.

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